In our First-Past-the-Post voting system voting for a third party means the candidate you hate the most has an easier time winning.
For example:
You have 3 candidates in an election, A, B, and C
You like candidate A but their from a small party, you don’t like B, and you hate C.
Candidate A and B are similar in some regards but differ in some things you feel are massively important. Candidate B and C are very different on most issues. C even talks about wanting to end democracy as we know it.
In the election A gets 25%, B gets 35%, and C gets 40%.
C is declared the winner as they got the highest percentage even though 60% of people didn’t want them to win.
This is why third party candidates are often referred to as “spoiler candidates” here in the states. They split the vote of a major party making another party have an easier time winning.
Does this suck? Abso-fucking-lutely yes.
Is our current system pretty fucked? Again, yes.
Will letting candidate C have an easier time winning fix this problem? No, no it will not.
There are more elections than just the presidential election, participate in those too as they are also very very important. Call your local representatives, try to gain support for getting a better system in your state. Talk with people in your community about how our current system is pretty borkedand ways to fix it. Fixing our voting system will (unfortunately) take time and a lot of local efforts all over the country. In my home state there’s currently a push for ranked choice voting that’s gathering more support, it will only succeed if people talk about it with each other and push for it together.
Unfortunately this presidential election I’m going to vote for Biden even though I’m not a big fan. Trump (or any Republican for that matter) is so much worse than him though.
Absolutely reach out to your representatives (I even encouraged it in my comment)
They’re your representatives, they represent the opinions of their constituents.
Especially reach out to your local reps as they are way more likely to be easily reachable. And your local reps are going to have way more access to other reps than you do.
In our First-Past-the-Post voting system voting for a third party means the candidate you hate the most has an easier time winning.
For example:
You have 3 candidates in an election, A, B, and C
You like candidate A but their from a small party, you don’t like B, and you hate C.
Candidate A and B are similar in some regards but differ in some things you feel are massively important. Candidate B and C are very different on most issues. C even talks about wanting to end democracy as we know it.
In the election A gets 25%, B gets 35%, and C gets 40%.
C is declared the winner as they got the highest percentage even though 60% of people didn’t want them to win.
This is why third party candidates are often referred to as “spoiler candidates” here in the states. They split the vote of a major party making another party have an easier time winning.
Does this suck? Abso-fucking-lutely yes.
Is our current system pretty fucked? Again, yes.
Will letting candidate C have an easier time winning fix this problem? No, no it will not.
There are more elections than just the presidential election, participate in those too as they are also very very important. Call your local representatives, try to gain support for getting a better system in your state. Talk with people in your community about how our current system is pretty borkedand ways to fix it. Fixing our voting system will (unfortunately) take time and a lot of local efforts all over the country. In my home state there’s currently a push for ranked choice voting that’s gathering more support, it will only succeed if people talk about it with each other and push for it together.
Unfortunately this presidential election I’m going to vote for Biden even though I’m not a big fan. Trump (or any Republican for that matter) is so much worse than him though.
Ok but consider the following
Absolutely reach out to your representatives (I even encouraged it in my comment)
They’re your representatives, they represent the opinions of their constituents.
Especially reach out to your local reps as they are way more likely to be easily reachable. And your local reps are going to have way more access to other reps than you do.